An interdisciplinary team proposes that sexual orientation is inherited epigenetically. What evidence supports this theory? Find out...

The molecular underpinning of human sexuality, including homosexuality, could
lie in the inheritance of epigenetic marks, according to a paper published
this week that provides a step-by-step argument for the idea (1). The theory
is not yet backed by epigenetic data on people with different sexual
orientations. Instead, it relies on established findings on the frequency of
homosexuality and the known mode of inheriting epigenetic marks to make its
case.

The molecular underpinning of human sexuality, including homosexuality, could lie in the inheritance of epigenetic marks, according to a new paper. Source: Wikimedia Commons, Bob J. Galindo

An interdisciplinary team of evolutionary biologists and mathematicians
brought together by the National Institute for Mathematical and Biological
Synthesis was studying genomic conflict—what happens when genes inherited by
someone are not aligned—when the topic of homosexuality came up. Since
homosexuality decreases a person’s odds of passing on the trait to future
generations through reproduction, biologists have had difficulty explaining
why it hasn’t been selected against by evolution.

“It’s one of the riddles of biology,” said William Rice, an evolutionary
biologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara and author of the
study that published in The Quarterly Review of Biology. “What we are trying
to do is explain an enigmatic phenotype from an evolutionary standpoint.”

The team brainstormed solutions to the puzzle, and soon began to converge on a
theory based in epigenetics. “The idea that epigenetics might contribute to
homosexuality has been around for a long time,” said Rice. “But there was no
coherent theory, no empirical support.”

The crux of the theory is that in the womb, sex and sexuality are influenced
by levels of testosterone. But this isn’t just mediated by whether a fetus
had male or female genes that control the level of testosterone production.
Epigenetic marks on the genome also control how the fetus—and later, the
child and adult—responds to testosterone levels. Most male fetuses have
epi-marks that make them more sensitive to testosterone than female fetuses.

Usually, such epi-marks are erased from the egg and sperm and re-established
in a fetus. But Rice’s team argues that when male epi-marks are not erased
from sperm and inherited by a daughter, or when female epi-marks from an egg
are inherited by a son, sexuality could be influenced. The change in the
fetus’ reaction to testosterone is not enough to change their sex, but could
alter their sexuality.

Some popular media articles this week have claimed that this new finding nixes
the idea of a “gay gene.” But researchers had already realized that
sexuality is not likely to be controlled by one, Mendelian gene mutation and
have been looking at more complex factors. And this study certainly does not
close the book on the biology of homosexuality.

“We definitely need further experiments to confirm this theory,” said Rice.
“And in the paper, we provide a way to test it, by doing genome-wide
epigenetic profiling of dads with and without lesbian daughters to find
differences.”

Even the discovery of those epigenetic marks will not fully explain the
biology of sexual orientation, explained Rice. It could just be one possible
inheritance mode of a complex phenotype.